the ocean of abandoned thoughts. part 1
Anyways ever since we've been released to roam the streets freely again I became more grateful to the smallest of things in life such as walking your way back home instead of calling an Uber or taking a cab helping some random people on the streets packing things into their car, navigating the city or even starting the small talk with someone you don't know for the sake of having a conversation. The walking bit is the one that affected me the most. It made me save loads of money and gave me time to do something that I haven't done since I got into my teenage years. Which is thinking. I know I know "but shyheb all you do is think all day everyday dumb ass that's how we function as society"
That's not what I am saying. I'm talking about the curiosity that we used to have when we were younger, the endless amount of questions that we used to have such as why is the sky blue what's this? What's that? How did we make this? How does this work? But ever since we became teenagers we stopped asking and our thinking became more narrow and most of the thinking that we do is pretty much reactive i.e we tend to only think when we're asked to do it. From my humble perspective. I'm a big fan of sociology but I would rather that I don't imply anything of it into this so we keep it as simplified as possible. I have a theory that when we were teenagers we were fragile, insecure and desperate to fit in to be loved and accepted by other people who are similar to us. That's when this thinking style starts. We started asking what can we do to be accepted and what kind of behaviour should I imply to myself to be a part of this clique. We found people who listen to the same music we like, wear matching outfits and hang out in some spots that make us feel safe. Then when we grew up we continued that behaviour until most of us became yes man. The word now became somewhat taboo for us to ask for the sake of knowledge became something humiliating. Some people would rather be tortured than let their google history be published because they would feel "kinda lame and cringy for looking up stuff like that". Companies use this to their advantage:
First, they find their target ( the people who want to sell their products to) then they create the problem based on their insecurities. Then they sell them the solution to these problems, they sell them this lifestyle, ideal image of themselves or even emotions that can only be acquired through the purchase of their product. A quick history lesson the first company to use this marketing strategy was Marlboro in their cowboy publicity back in 1954 until 1999 this "Marlboro Man" that was conceived by Leo Burnett The images initially featured rugged men portrayed in a variety of roles but later primarily featured a rugged cowboy or cowboys, in picturesque wild terrain. The advertisements were originally conceived as a way to popularize filtered cigarettes, which at the time were considered feminine. This means their target was beta males that think smoking will instantly turn them into a mega alpha that grabs all the ladies and become respected around his peers as if the cigarette itself contains the charisma or masculinity that these men need. The next step is to ensure that you made the right decision by giving you a warm welcome to their consumer's farm by letting you know that you're a "part of the family" or whatever label you want to be slapped on your back so you keep buying their products.
Then after you get comfortable with the idea that you are ready no matter what your financial situation is to buy their next hit. They start disturbing your peace. They start to create flaws in this man-made comfort zone that they placed you in but they know that no matter what the inconvenience is, you're always ready to buy whatever it takes to keep that comfort zone after all. Family is worth more than money right?... Take Apple for example. Apple did a great technological breakthrough they gave us a phone that could have everything that we need in our pockets and always one click away from the knowledge from all of humanity (yes you can use the internet for that) they kept developing the phone to make it better more compact and user-friendly steve jobs goal was he wanted to be easy to use for a toddler and for a senior, they worked hard to make the cameras of the iPhone so magnificent that now some independent photographers would rather use it instead of a camera. But the more they turn to a franchisee the more their objective change from technological breakthroughs to a money farm. A yearly phone was mandatory to release. They knew that AirPods would fail if they released them by themselves. I mean its wireless is better thanks to the freedom you gain but do you think that their sales would skyrocket as much as they did after the iPhone seven release? They've built a loyal customer base. They gave them the problem with taking the headphones jack off then they gave a primary solution which was the dongle which was inconvenient for people since they have to choose between charging and using headphones so they gave an optimal solution which was. With the AirPods now you can be free from making any decisions anymore now you can charge and use your headphones at the same time. Just like you used to do. Anyways some companies greed end here but others will keep going to the next step which is bundling all of your favourite toys and more for the price of -insert your paycheck- it's a one in a time offer it has the thing that got you hooked in the first place all the other things that you think you need AND a bunch of garbage that was too lazy to try to promote them by themselves so here you go it's an offer you cannot decline!.. no really you cannot decline because you're hooked and this is the only way you can get your fix otherwise you'll have to pay extra just to get the very thing that you wanted in the first place. You're such a wonderful little consumer You're not only benefiting the company no. People who take pleasure in your tragic financial strategy are your bank I mean how on earth do you think you'll be able to keep up with your chronic consumption behaviour you're going to take a loan that will cripple you until you probably pay it back and you will promise yourself that you don't do this again this is the final time that you will take a loan from the bank and the product was worth it. You made a great investment, you should be feeling proud of yourself for getting it and the regret turns into sorrow that turns into a sense of pride. That promise will be broken when the next one comes in but no need to be thinking negatively you're too busy "grinding" oh don't get me started on that, maybe I'll have time for it later. Anyway, where were we? Oh yes. Your landlords also benefit from your inability to be financially stable so you will always always have to pay the rent. Your workplace is the last one to benefit from this since they won't get any monetary return from it but they know you're their slave now since you got yourself on a loan that you have to pay it back so they can create you in an inferior way you can't leave so why bother trying to care for you. Others who can benefit from you that I don't want to get into are coffee shops fast-food restaurants tabac and/or alcohol companies and eventually hospitals if you live in a place with no free healthcare system *cough* us *cough* Anyway, with that being said , I think I have shared a lot of information to help you realize that freedom, as we know It, doesn't follow the actual meaning of “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” George Orwell, 1984. Nowadays two plus two depends on what family you're part of. People get bullied for being different for not being a part of the flock. For me, the only time it's somewhat okay to not agree with someone is if he isn't a part of the beehive he's not doing his part and not contributing to anything at all. But that's just my opinion back to freedom. As an economist and hopefully future philosopher I think that it's time to ask that question we all ask every time capitalism fails. It's important to keep asking it even if the capitalist keeps replying with the argument that there is no alternative. We should keep asking for an answer because a question that's not been asked publicly will never get an answer. Does capitalism contribute to the freedom of a person? Adam Smith, a great economist and the father of modern economics is the first to embrace capitalism but my question is the same that Karl Marx asked so I'm not inventing the wheel here I'm just reminding you that it's going flat and we need to change it. Karl Marx pointed out the reason that made A.smith think that capitalism is a flawless pro-freedom system was that he wants on the bad side of it which is the struggle of the marginalised working-class. So does capitalism really mean freedom for society or is it only exclusive to the upper class? Obviously the question could start an endless debate therefore we're just going to window shop our way through the pros and cons of capitalism and the alternatives.
I know I know I promised that I won't make this boring but we need a tiny history lesson to get an overview of Capitalism. Basically, Capitalism is an economic system in which private individuals own and control most of the factors of production—the resources used to produce goods and services. Individuals also own and run most companies, which compete with other companies for business. Which is a fancy way of saying that you're free to own stuff that you can use to make stuff to sell them and make profit, see I told you it will be fun.
Capitalism had some remarkable ups throughout history especially post war. postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism,was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ended by 1973 The United States, Soviet Union and Western European and East Asian countries in particular experienced unusually high and sustained growth, together with full employment. Full employment! Do you know how many hypotheses you need to make that happen today? this high growth also included many countries that had been devastated by the war, such as Japan , West germany and Austria , South Korea , Belgium , France , Italy and Greece. Yes, Greece. Even countries that were relatively unaffected by the war such as Sweden experienced considerable economic growth. Let's take France for an example. Throughout this period France had a thirty years period from 1945 to 1975.
Known as the Trente Glorieuses. Over this thirty-year period, France's economy grew rapidly like the economies of other developed countries. These decades of economic prosperity combined high productivity with high average wages and high consumption, and were also characterised by a highly developed system of social benefits. for example: the real purchasing power of the average French worker's salary went up by 170% between 1950 and 1975, while overall private consumption increased by 174%.The French standard of living, which had been damaged by both World Wars, became one of the world's highest. The population also became far more urbanized. As you can see, capitalism when done right can make a huge impact on the economy , picking it up from zero to hero or even from hero to superhero in a world where you can afford to buy a house with a minimum wage job. A world where you don't have to squeeze every millisecond of your life working part time jobs to afford basic living needs such as food, clothing, housing, transportation etc… but all good things come to an end that's how life is. Following the economic boom we had seen the other side of capitalism. This rude brutal mean side of it where it turns the cities into a concrete jungle and the rich to apex predators and the working class as this unfortunate prey It started with the great recession. The stock market crash caused market to fail hence Affecting all the major stock markets in the world, particularly the United Kingdom,it was one of the worst stock market due the dollar devaluation It was compounded by the outbreak of the 1973 oil crisis in October of that year. Oil crisis? I hear you readers, who didn't ask. Yes. The 1973 oil crisis started when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. blah blah blah politics here politics there nonsense anyway,The initial nations targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States the price of oil had risen nearly 300%, with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the global economy. It was later called the "first oil shock", followed by the 1979 oil crisis, termed the "second oil shock". Because humans are pretty good at making the same bad decision twice. But wait there's more. During 2008 we had a global financial crisis just to spice things up. In a nutshell, the Credit crisis. Bank collapse. Government bailout. In a more detailed nutshell The idea was to help everyone attain the American dream ( remind me to tell you about the american dream after we're done with this i have a bad memory) of homeownership. Since these borrowers were considered high-risk, their mortgages had unconventional terms that reflected that risk, such as higher interest rates and variable payments. This should have been a red flag for the United states but they thought someone was waving the USSR flag and went by and did it.
(I'm keeping this for whoever want more insight on the consequences of the GFC: The bursting of the housing bubble has a bigger effect on falling consumption and imports
than does the reappraisal of risk, but the reappraisal of risk has the biggest effect on
investment. Rising risk causes several effects. The cost of capital is now higher and leads to a
contraction in the desired capital stock. Hence there is disinvestment by business and this can
go on for several years – a deleveraging in the popular business media. The higher perception
of risk by households causes them to discount future labour incomes and leads to higher
savings and less consumption, fuelling the disinvestment process by business.) If you didn't read that the global financial crisis causes everyone to consume less, save more and get paid less since no one is buying, there's no point in producing, therefore the salaries drop. Magic right?
But all of this is nothing compared to the one and only everyone gives a warm welcome to the Great Depression. It was a severe worldwide economic depression It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression just the one our generation have haha.. ehm anyway, as you can see capitalism have one hell of a rocket you can ride to the moon but the catch is that rocket ain't going down so if you slip, brace for impact. "But most of these economic setbacks are due to an external influence such as politics and war" you're not wrong reader who i keep using as a segway because I'm bad at transitioning from a topic to another. You can say that most of these economical failures are due to man made problems. A man's greed to take the lands of others one's using the power to their advantage to gain more and more without realising the dystopian world he's creating behind every step he makes head the the paper throne made out of money to site and look over his land he takes a glace but all he sees is a barely functioning society the people are driven by fear not by passion to do their job that they're enslaved at some people are still working hard so one day they could sit on that throne you're on. Others completely gave up they're burned out and living off some leftover kindness that's still trapped inside a shell of a heart that used to beat
Communism huh you know that we had to go down this road don't act like you didn't know.
The glorious ideology of Communism. Oh yes it's the dream of everyone until they make enough money. Basically Communism
Is an ideology and movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state. Communism is a specific, yet distinct, form of socialism. we had the chance to witness it being applied in reality during the reign of the USSR so let's see How did it work in the soviet union:
Upon the conclusion of the civil war Lenin's government introduced The New Economic Policy, which led to a partial return of a free market and private property to kickstart the economy this resulted in a period of economic recovery. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power. Stalin was known around his peers that he's very understanding person and appreciated a good debate. If you disagree with that you might end up in the gulag. Moving one ..as a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization, which led to significant economic growth, but also led to a man-made famine in 1932–1933 and expanded the Gulag labour camp system.
When Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership. The country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took an early lead in the Space Race with the first ever satellite and the first human spaceflight and the first probe to land on another planet, Venus. In the 1970s
By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relatively self-sufficient
Pretty impressive so far.
But what happened was it was wiped out of existence and only shown as a bad example or in historical fairy tales the short answer is money. The long answer though is money and politics and the inability to hold itself while competing with the so called free world. Remember when the doomsday clock was 3 minutes to midnight 3 minutes That's not even enough time to read why it is that close. Post the fall of 1991 it became 17 minutes until midnight. Surely we're lucky to be born post these stressful times, right? Wrong, last year it was 100 seconds until midnight. You can't even listen to your favorite song while humanity collapses on itself. The only solution i see to attain communism is through the technological progress i.e everything is produced by an A.I and humanity shall live in harmony and peace then.
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